


Finding You

by Churbooseanon



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Birthday Presents, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-09
Updated: 2015-07-09
Packaged: 2018-04-08 11:53:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4303959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Churbooseanon/pseuds/Churbooseanon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>David doesn't like birthdays. York and North do their best to make the day a good one anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finding You

**Author's Note:**

> A very belated gift meant for Synnesai.

Birthdays were never high on David’s list of ‘Days That Are Awesome’ list. It’s right up there with Christmas, the first day of summer vacation, and any day that involves his father coming home with a thick deployment folder that announced it was time, yet again, to move on. Each sucked for their own separate reasons, and birthdays topped the list. There hadn’t been a time since he was eight where they’d lived in one place for more than two years. No time to really make the kinds of friends you spend lots of time with. It only grew worse with every move, every bounce, every…

David shook his head every time those sorts of thoughts came up. He was in highschool now, and no one wanted to deal with a mopey freshman as he shuffled through the halls. Freshman year, his mother had said, would be a changing point in his life. Dad had promised that he wouldn’t be moved around anymore, but David believed that just about as much as he believed the idea that the sun rose in the west and set in the east. So, truth be told, he hadn’t tried hard to make friends this year. Better not to be disappointed. 

“So… soon-to-be birthday boy…” 

Not that he was very successful there. 

David looked up from his lunch, which came complete with a pathetic looking cookie, and frowned at the pair who had sat down across from him. Here, of course, were the two juniors who had decided to take David under their wings when, on his first day, he had gotten lost looking for the gym. One was the class clown, Marcus York, and the other the class dad, Theodore Draktos. They were known as York and North Dakota, or just North, but mostly the latter came from struggle people had with the pronunciation of his last name. 

They were beautiful, and every time David looked at them his stomach started to get warm in the most awkward way that his father would never approve of. It was part of the reason he didn’t like being around North and York, for all the hard work the two put into making him feel comfortable and welcome in their group of friends. 

“I’m really not in the mood, York,” David sighed. “I just…”

“We were talking about inviting you over to my house for a pool party,” North answered slowly. “But…”

“I don’t like swimming, North.”

“Wash, that…”

“And my name isn’t Wash,” David grumbled, pushing away from the table and grabbing up his books. Somehow his appetite was gone. “I don’t want anything like a fuss made about my birthday. I don’t like birthdays.”

With that he just walked away from the table. He wasn’t feeling so hungry anymore. 

* * * * * *

If he had to be honest with himself, David expected to be ambushed by York and North the second he got off the bus the next morning. When neither of them were there, or waiting for him outside of his home room, David wasn’t sure whether he was glad or pained that the two people who had gone out of their way to befriend him had been chased away so easily. Strange, he had been certain that York at least would ignore this sort of insistence from David. Of course he knew he should have expected cooler heads, namely North’s, to prevail. 

Maybe then, what he felt when he opened his locker between second and third periods and had a slip of paper flutter to his feet was relief. Or annoyance. That didn’t change the warmth he felt as he opened the slip and read the typed message. 

_On a day as this it’s not amiss  
To play a game with classic frame  
If your mind be quick and you know the trick  
Then you shall learn what it is to earn  
A happier day in a thoughtful way  
The first clue you get is where we first met  
Now go do your part as our games do start._

The rhyming was terrible, the balance of the lines all off, and still David had to chuckle. Everything about the arrangement screamed York, but from David’s memory it was North that had computer lab in the morning. Yet York seemed to keep the secret of breaking into lockers to himself with pride, so this was clearly a joint operation if he’d ever seen one. Smiling to himself, David grabbed the rest of his books and slammed his locker closed. From the look of it he wouldn’t have time to fetch the clue now by the time on his phone, but he could do it during class if he got a hall pass. 

For the first time in a long while, David found himself excited about the idea of his birthday.

Unsurprisingly his French teacher easily relinquished the pass and he found his second clue taped behind a picture outside of the choir room. Another poorly constructed poem led him to the library between class periods. So began a day bouncing around the school, each clue reminding him of good memories with his friends in the last five months. The time York had thought he broke a seat in study hall. The afternoon David had spent in detention with North, David there for grinding his board down a rail on school property, North for smoking. Of course North had just stolen his twin’s cigarette before a teacher could see her and give South her third detention that week. 

Each clue warmed him more, reminded him just how much these friends had given him. The reminder was… more welcome than he’d realized, and the thought that the two were going so far to make his birthday good and memorable meant the world to him. 

If only they hadn’t chosen to make it, like, twenty clues long. Granted, when David searched the trophies by the gym for a slip and hadn’t found one, he came to wonder if they weren’t stretching this out as long as possible so they could cut the final clue in just in time for the end of school. Of course, a clue in the boy’s bathroom recovered just after eighth period led him back to his own locker, and David had to find that pathetic. 

The scrapbook he found just barely peeking out of his backpack was anything but pathetic. It was a simple construction of steel gray with yellow pages, sort of mimicking the colors of David’s skateboard. ‘David Jones: This Is Your Life’ the cover declared, and hesitantly David found himself opening the thing. The first five pages were filled with pictures of varying quality and presence in his memory. PIctures of him at a skate park the twins took him to, his whole body airborne during a trick. Another was a terrible selfie he could remember York insisting on where all their tongues were blue from slushies. Pictures of video games, of David rolling his eyes at York posing in his track uniform, and David cheering the school (and North) on at a football game. 

And, while most of the pages after the fifth were utterly blank, the sixth had a hand written message. Well, messages in two different hands. 

‘Happy Birthday Good Lookin,’ York’s declared. ‘Next year, pool party.’

‘Don’t let yesterdays limit your tomorrows. Make more memories,’ North’s ordered. 

Taped below the messages was one last slip of paper. 

_uck any more clues. Just come outside so we can make birthday plans._

David had to laugh. 

* * * * * *

“Hey.”

David expected something showier than just York and North leaning against York’s car, a strangely green vehicle that York had named Delta for reasons surpassing understanding. All he got in response was two nervous looking friends. 

“So?” York asked, pushing off the hood and starting forward. Ultimately he stopped a few paces from David, seeming to be held back by something. Perhaps by David’s reaction the day before. 

“He’s here,” North pointed out, his eyes on David. “You get the first of our gifts then?”

“Yeah,” David agreed. “Took a lot of work, right?”

“All night,” York shook his head. “Between that and running around, hiding clues, I’m fucking tired.”

David didn’t let him continue. Instead he moved forward and did the thing he’d longed for since the day they had met. On a day such as this, after this display, surely they wouldn’t hate him forever for this. He doubted it from North since South had alluded to an ex-boyfriend, but that didn’t mean David knew enough about York to be sure about him. 

Fingers curling into his hair answered that well enough for David, and he leaned back into the touch. 

“Looks like we don’t need to give him that part of the gift,” David could hear North saying through the overly loud pounding of his heart. “Not when he’s stealing it already.”

That got David to jerk away from York at last, and left him staring at North. What? 

His chance to respond was cut off by another kiss, this from North. And as York’s arms wrapped around his waist from behind, David found himself reevaluating his opinions on some basic rules of life. 

Maybe birthdays weren’t all that bad.


End file.
